Jeffrey Brosk at Stephen Rosenberg - New York, New York

A faculty of perception of deliberation pervades the work of Jeffrey Brosk It is particularly apparent in his wood-and-slate reliefs because their being high hilled on the wall encourages individual to study them as pictorial compositions rather than to answer to a sculptural sense of space or material. That's not to say that these works aren't belong toed with material. They are, thoroughly: not sole does Brosk capitalize on color and surface differences between timber-land and slate, but he also plays naturally irregular, tree-shaped slices of thicket against the orderliness of machined lumber. on the contrary placement on the wall gives these works a visual rather than a physical emphasis. That, somewhat surprisingly, makes them more interesting than the scarcely any small freestanding sculptures in the present to view - pieces related in substance and form to the wall works, on the other hand whose minimalistic clarity is too shut to inertia.

Inertia is certainly not a point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled in Sanger, a wall piece (53 by means of 47 by 3 inches) consisting of a vertical plank upon the right, a larger and les regular slab sweeping leftward like an out-thrown arm, and a square of slate inset into this ragged piece in the way that that it exactly lines up with the top cutting side of the plank. This composition is almost Japanese in its craft and focus; everything is in like manner measured, so balanced, that single seems to breathe at a slower pace in replication to its calm. But it does not become boring, precisely because of the contribution of the materials (another rather Japanese effect) Here the grain of the forest-land so like broad, racing brushstrokes, supplies an internal change that enhances the occult balance of the piece as a whole (the vertical plank and the slate square are abundant smaller than the irregular slab, nevertheless they succeed in visually anchoring it).

Rush inlet a wall piece that spans 16 1/2 feet is the largest work in the present to view Here a promised movement supplies the drama: the piece consists of sum of two units long, shallow curves of forest-land (cut from a bent tree trunk) plant end-to-end, with a vertical bar of slate between them. The configuration, which Brosk used in an earlier, smaller work that was seen in his last Rosenberg display evokes a wooden-handled knife being shakeed out of a wooden sheath. The whole is symmetrical and weighty, notwithstanding the slice of slate, by means of suggesting the first glimpse of an emerging blade, gives it a graceful dynamism.

greatest in quantity of the works shown had titles taken from locations in the western U probably because last year Brosk worked upon a private commission in Texas for a large, make open outdoor structure that interwove uncompounded bodys of wood and stone with views of wild-flowers, brush and the wide horizon. notwithstanding the pieces seem independent of their titles; any elicitation of place pales beside Brosk's clearer communication of distinct materials working in plot with human skills of hand. The measurement and fitting of parts, and the interruption of single material by the insertion of another, plant the man-made against the natural. And the man-made triumphs as the signs of the artist's attention become the predominant features of the work.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group